Executive Disorder: White House Weekly #4 - podcast episode cover

Executive Disorder: White House Weekly #4

Feb 21, 202543 min
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Episode description

The gang get together to discuss White House plans to make Donald Trump king, house migrants in a prison James visited in Panama, and Make America Healthy Again by making it harder to access medicine. We also catch up with Elon Musk, as apartheid's favorite son continues his rampage through the federal government.

Sources:

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/18/world/americas/trump-migrant-deportation-panama.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare

https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/02/establishing-the-presidents-make-america-healthy-again-commission/

https://www.politico.com/news/2025/02/18/kennedy-lays-out-hhs-plan-00204675

https://newrepublic.com/post/191630/donald-trump-tom-homan-alexandria-ocasio-cortez-immigration

https://popular.info/p/in-botched-dei-purge-osha-trashes?r=4v4dm&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web 

https://www.businessinsider.com/doge-list-officials-resigned-fired-musk-trump-federal-government-2025-2

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2025/02/17/doge-social-security-musk/ 

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/doge/usda-accidentally-fired-officials-bird-flu-rehire-rcna192716

https://www.theverge.com/news/614078/faa-air-traffic-control-spacex-elon-musk-layoff-staff-shortage

https://apnews.com/article/rubio-plane-mechanical-issue-munich-conference-031928b920ff8e8d495d1590d508e1e5

https://x.com/BethanyAllenEbr/status/1892086856990237059

https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/trump-auto-tariff-rate-will-be-around-25-2025-02-18/

https://www.politico.com/news/2025/02/18/trump-order-power-independent-agencies-00204798

https://www.npr.org/2025/02/19/nx-s1-5302481/trump-independent-agencies

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Transcript

Speaker 1

Colson Media.

Speaker 2

Oh, welcome to Executive Dysfunction, a podcast.

Speaker 3

If you.

Speaker 2

Ed, it's Electoral Disuction colectile.

Speaker 4

Executive Disordered, our weekly newscast covering what's happening in the White House, the crumbling world, and what it means for you.

Speaker 2

Not about digstaff sponsored by HIMS, not yet, hopefully one day.

Speaker 4

I'm Garrison Davis today him joined by James Stout, Mio Wong, and Robert Evans, who never knows the title of the podcast that he's on.

Speaker 2

In my defense, I'm on a lot of podcasts, I.

Speaker 3

Was gonna say, just because Robert Evans lives in like a constant podcast.

Speaker 4

This episode, we are covering the week of February twelve to February nineteen. Let's start with a brief Eric Adams update, or as I call it, an.

Speaker 3

Ew that's a Turkish for Eric Adams update.

Speaker 4

So, in response to the calls to drop the Turkish corruption charges against New York Mayor Eric Adams, eight top federal prosecutors have resigned in protest. Then we had four deputy mayors leave office. The New York Governor is now considering removing Adams from office, which somehow is something that the governor of New York has power to do, by the way, and also the city council speaker has called

on the mayor to resign. There's a judge doing a hearing on Wednesday as we are recording this right now, on whether to appoint a special prosecutor to continue prosecuting the charges despite you know, Trump's effort to have these charges drops to help to help Adams make sure that ice raids can continue in this city in a very very clear quid pro quo. So this is a developing story. We will continue on the Eric Adams front as this changes.

Speaker 5

By the way, people could miss it the first time, like a few months ago, we did record an entire episode about the things that he actually did, which are unbelievably funny. So go listen to that. We're not going to talk about them here, but it very very funny corruption.

Speaker 3

Yeah, if you didn't get the Turkey joke, we explain it in detail there.

Speaker 4

I'm sure people are familiar with the Turkey situation in general.

Speaker 3

All right.

Speaker 4

Next, on a related note, on Tuesday, President Trump instructed the DOJ to fire all Biden appointed US attorneys. Now, usually these types of appointments do resign at the end of their president's term. But Trump just immediately going out to fire all of them is a new, unique, and noteworthy and Trump has done some other noteworthy things to expand executive power, and for more on that, I will turn to Mia Wong.

Speaker 5

Oh Boy. So yesterday, on Tuesday the eighteenth, Trump signed an executive order that effectively is just him saying the words I am the law over and over again. The actual sort of content of the executive order is convoluted, but basically what he's saying is that, like the presidency and like him specifically, is in control of all government agencies.

And this is an end to a very very long standing practice of well, okay, attempt to end the long standing practice of there being like independent regulatory agencies which were set up by Congress. And what what Trump was doing here is claiming that, you know, this is the thing called the unitary executive theory. There's a whole history

of this Republican Party. This is the most unhinged unitary executive theory thing we've ever seen, where he is just straight up claiming that he should be able to run all these things that none of these independent regulatory agencies and this includes stuff like the FCC, the Securities and Exchange Commission, stuff like that actually all just directly answered to him and not to you know, Congress or or as you know, function as independent bodies like they were

set up to be by Acts of Congress. It states that everyone's legal opinions that come out of these things like have to agree with legal opinions of the Presidency. And it basically sets up reporting thing where all of these things have to like report any major policy decisions that they're going to make to Russell Vott, who's like one of the co authors of Project twenty twenty five. Yeah. Yeah, so in some sense, it's a codification of the stuff he's already been trying to do. Yeah.

Speaker 4

Ever since basically he got inaugurated again, they've been trying to push for this complete unitary executive power as like running the entire not just running the entirely executive branch, but all of these agencies that they want to rope under the authority of the executive branch.

Speaker 3

Yeah.

Speaker 5

And there's a number of sort of alarming things about this one. This is a like even by the standards of like peak War on Terror, Bush Administration Ship where they're just like grabbing people off the streets like this is a unprecedented sort of seizure of executive power.

Speaker 3

Two.

Speaker 5

And I think this is also worth noting in the context of a bunch of the shit he's been saying over the past week. Like last week he had the the he who says his country does not violate any law, which is like, I think, think a fake Napoleon quote.

Speaker 2

It's a fake Napoleon quote from a movie made in the nineteen seventies in the Soviet Union. I believe the name of the movie was Wateroo That rules. It's famous because they'd made they had some massive thousands and thousands of actual like soldiers, like set piece battles. But yeah, that's where the quote. I think the quote may have another origin, but that's the famous origin. It probably was never said by Napoleon.

Speaker 4

Well, and earlier today, the official White House account tweeted about abolishing the New York City congestion pricing with basically like a magazine cover style image of Trump wearing a crown with texts that reads, long Live the King.

Speaker 5

And again that was the That was the official Twitter account of the White.

Speaker 4

House, which has also been doing something like unhinged posting, including like ASMR deportation videos. It's like really dark stuff, like like viscerally upsetting.

Speaker 3

Yeah, it is like the opening credit Somebody's Austin movie. The White House twitter feed right now.

Speaker 2

Yeah, it's the stuff like you used to not be able to talk about being a king an American polity.

Speaker 3

Yeah, pretty recently.

Speaker 5

That's kind of the whole point of this country.

Speaker 2

There's a state where the whole motto is six simper tyrannus.

Speaker 3

Yeah, and the unit of the the United States military.

Speaker 5

Yes, yeah, And okay, so I want to come back on to the thing for a second talk about one of the things that probably will be the crucial legal fight, which is that like he's claiming the ability to be the person who interprets the law, and you know, there's a whole bunch of sort of legal fuzziness about that and about to what extent these things are supposed to be independent, but probably isn't the culmination of his attempt to literally like rule the entire country by executive fiat.

But this is such a big step. Yeah, this is this is a massive step towards that. And I think, you know, and we like Okay, this is one of these things where we literally have no idea what the consequences of this will be, because, like we are, we are so far into the great beyond that shit is happening that a year ago, if you proposed it, everyone would have thought you were completely out of your mind.

Speaker 2

Yeah.

Speaker 4

Well, and this is stuff that that like Robert has been talking about for a long time. There's been a lot of people talking about the Heritage Foundations push for the unitary executive theory, stuff that Curtis Harrabin's been talking about. Like my article last week on Shattersone kind of underlines

where they are going with with this. And and yeah, like the consequences are so vast and unknowable because we've we've never had an executive that is kind of this successfully or like this focused in his attempts to seize like total executive control over the entirety of the federal government.

Speaker 5

Yeah, and I want to end with like one of the other really chilling parts of this, which is that if you read the executive Order, the underlying logic of it is that like the president is like the physical manifestation of the will of the people.

Speaker 2

Yeah, it's just the fear of prince.

Speaker 3

Yeah, yeah, yeah, never been done before like that.

Speaker 5

And also specifically then Napoleon quote about like he U say the country's not violin me low, Like that is literally the legal principle that Carl Schmidt developed, like specifically to put Hitler in power as the fewer Ye, So this.

Speaker 4

Is great, I mean, and Musk and Trump have been saying stuff akin to that in interviews, like being asked like how is Doge allowed to do this sort of stuff? Musk and Trump have been saying, well, the people voted for this, like we we are. We are enabling the will of the people, even if that like you know, goes past like our technical authority, it's what the people wanted. So we're gonna remove all of these bureaucrats that ordinarily would try to stop us, because we have like the consent of the.

Speaker 3

Governed, the mandate of Heaven.

Speaker 4

Even if that just completely bypasses Congress, even if that denies the courts, which we'll talk about more later, they are willing to go as far as as they can't.

Speaker 3

Yeah, and no one stopped them yet, right, Like, I.

Speaker 4

Mean, some of the courts are trying, but trying isn't good enough.

Speaker 3

They seem to be an open violation of that. Yeah, like they would call to keep paying USAID stuff and they just said they won't.

Speaker 5

More on that later.

Speaker 4

Let's touch on immigration with James and then and then we will have a quick break.

Speaker 3

Yeah. Perfect, Okay, So what I want to talk about is this. It was first reported by the New York Times. I've since confirmed it with sources on the ground in Panama. The Trump administration is detaining migrants that it can't deport to their home countries in Panama currently. So currently, these are places where the US doesn't have good relations with their government. Right, they'll be Afghans, they'll be Iranians, people

like that. The US seems to have found a way to deport Venezuelan's using an airline that was sanctioned until the day had apparently landed in a US military base to take Venezuelan people back to Venezuela. If you want to hear about like people leaving Iran and why they're leaving Iran, you can listen to my episodes I did in the Dadian Gap. They came out late October November of last year. But right now they're being kind of corraled in a hotel in Panama City from what I've heard,

and just this morning the transport to Sanvicente began. So the New York Times kind of mischaracterizes the detention center at Sanvicente. I'm guessing this is because they haven't been there and I have. They called it like a detention center that's being built, quote close to the jungle. It looks close to the jungle if you're looking on Google Maps, I suppose it's off it's off the Pan American Highway. Actually, you literally take a dirt road off the Pan American

Highway and you come across this huge prison facility. It's all big, modern white buildings. The old facility that was there burned down and it's been rebuilt largely I'm getting with money from when the Biden administration was funding deportations for Panama in twenty twenty four. It's a vast attention facility. At the time when I went there, my fixered Daddy and Ella and I weren't allowed to access the facility, but it was very clearly like too big for what

its stated purpose was. It stated purpose was people who had warrants for their arrest and had been found to have warrant for their arrest when they entered Panama and were being deported back to the countries where they had warrants. I've spoken to half anoutand twenty dozen people who were detained there, and I just got one quote surely to read and then we can talk about this. They treated us very badly verbally and psychologically. We all had to

do our business in the same cell. They threw food on the floor for us to eat, and we were all in handcuffs. Jesus Christ.

Speaker 4

So is this a result of like Rubio's negotiations with Panama? Like, how is this like logistically operating in terms of like the US dropping people into a totally different country that like they also just don't have citizenship too.

Speaker 3

Yeah, So legality of taking somewhere to a third country, it's a little unclear, right, of course, the United States has done this well. Guantanamo Bay is technically American soil, I guess, But they've also they've done it in other places around the world that are not Guantanamo Bay throughout the War on Terror. This is not the same as the El Salvador Plan. The United States Department of Homeland Security Secretary for Homeland Security attended the inauguration of the

new Panamanian president. DHS and the Panamanian executive have a very close relationship. Got it the US was funding deportations for Panama under Biden. They claimed that these were only people who had warrant for their arrest in the countries they were being deported back to. When I spoke to those people, like I was there when they literally took the families apart, right, put the people in a truck,

sent them off to San Vicente and deported them. And these guys, if they had warrant for their arrest, it seems very odd because when they arrived back in Columbia, they were not detained or arrested. And like, if you have a warrant for someone and they get handed to you, that's when you're going to detain them, right, And none of them were detained. They've just released back to their

day to day life in Columbia. So like, there was definitely precedent for this set by the Biden administration, But what's happening now is is a degree worse right, taking people. I don't know what the long term plan for these Afghan and Aralian people is right where they going to live in San Vicente?

Speaker 5

Like, who's custody are they in?

Speaker 3

Yeah? Like is this like a DHS black site, Like is it a yeah? No, absolutely are they? Are they on US soil in Sandy Sente? Certainly when I was there, it was secured exclusively by Panamanian authorities, not by US authorities. So like the legal process, I'm guessing, like I don't know if there is one beyond, Like we can't deport these people back to their countries. We want to number

needs to go up, right. There's been reporting that Donald Trump is upset that his deportation numbers haven't hit the numbers that Biden did. Yeah, And so they're doing things like this, which appears to be move fast and break things. I guess, like, I don't really know how to describe it.

Speaker 4

I mean, it's the entire motto of the new Trump term in general. And things are being broken.

Speaker 3

Yes they are, yeah, including lots of human rights conventions. As we're recording this on Wednesday afternoon, I just heard from a friend in Panama that three hundred people were transferred to San Vicente, and it looks like one hundred and seventy nine of them have no sort of clear path to be deported back to their home countries, no

accepted place to send them. So those are the people who seem to be in legal limbo right now in Panama and sem Vicente for a matter of time that we don't know, in a status that we don't yet. No isn't clear. But yeah, this is pretty bad. Like I say, I've been on the ground. I don't many other reporters who have been on the ground is sam Vicente. We're very well sourced in Panama and among the migrant communities,

so we're going to continue reporting on this. I've already sent some requests for comment out, so I would expect us to have something out on this in the next couple of weeks, hopefully.

Speaker 4

All right, let's go on a quick ad break and come back to talk about RFK Junior.

Speaker 5

Okay, we are back.

Speaker 3

I need to take off my plate carrier.

Speaker 4

It's crushing me with as James takes off his plate carrier that he's wearing for some reason.

Speaker 2

It's company policy that we all wear body arm or well recording because of an accident that occurred several weeks ago. We don't need to get into it. Garrison, Please continue, Garrison, say something.

Speaker 3

Rude or offensive when I had to take my headmans off to take off my play carrier. Yes.

Speaker 4

So last week, last week RFK Junior was confirmed as Secretary of Health and Human Services.

Speaker 5

This is one I thought there might be a slightly more pushback on. But oh, oh, how naive I was, Oh, yeah, No, they are beaten into a corner.

Speaker 3

I didn't a fight.

Speaker 4

On February thirteenth, Trump signed in executive order establishing a Commission to make America Healthy Again. In the third paragraph, the order states quote unquote, concern over the quote unquote staggering increase of autism, and the next paragraph takes aim at ADHD medication not great, not ideal, and the order continues to be pretty bad. I will do a direct quote here quote. This postes a dire threat to the

American people and our way of life. To fully address the growing health crisis in America, we must redirect our national focus in the public and private sectors towards understanding and drastically lowering chronic disease rates and ending childhood chronic disease.

This includes fresh thinking on nutrition, physical activity, healthy lifestyles over reliance on medication and treatments and effects of new technological habits, environmental impacts, and food and drug quality and safety unquote fresh thinking.

Speaker 5

Yeah.

Speaker 3

Like, one of the like types of guys who I've run into when I'm out in the mountains is people who like have very reasonably assessed that people in the United States don't have access to the healthiest food, especially they don't have a lot of money, and that that is impacting their health. Right, that's a fair enough assessment, sure to go from that to like, and I just want someone who will do something about it. So I guess this RFK guy is okay.

Speaker 4

No, No, everything in this order has the most like dog whistly language. Oh yeah, that not only like directly targets life saving medication, but it can also be used to target like vaccines, and like it's it's really worrying.

Speaker 3

And there's a measles outbreak right now right in Laredo, like in Texas, three.

Speaker 2

Hundred people last I checked in Laredo around Laredo.

Speaker 4

Yeah, there's been an increasing number of measles outbreaks the past like five years in this country.

Speaker 3

Yeah, if you're not aware of how devastating measles outbreaks can be. I'd really encourage you to look into the outbreak in Samoa and the absolutely heartbreaking consequences of that.

Speaker 2

Yeah, which RFK Junior helped cause by pushing a shitload of anti vaccine propaganda. Here, something like eighty people died, most of them children.

Speaker 3

Jesus. Yeah, they ran out of child sized coffins and had to us for people to send more.

Speaker 2

Well, which leads to a separate problem. But you know, if you go to Childcoffins dot com and put in the promo code, it could happen here anyway. Ten percent off.

Speaker 3

Yeah, RFK gets you twenty percent off the Yeah, it's a good business to be in.

Speaker 4

Speaking of Section two of the order calls to quote unquote aggressively combat critical health challenges such as quote the rising rates of mental health disorders and diabetes. So RFK has been a number of statements that are worrying, which is just a blanket statement that I can make, but specifically talking about how to treat diabetes with like, you know, lifestyle changes and like in changing your diet habits and

like a whole bunch of extremely worrying stuff. Section five of the order states that with one hundred days This new commission, made up of the heads of thirteen various agencies and chaired by RFK Junior, is supposed to submit their findings that quote assess the threat that potential over utilization of medication, certain food ingredients, certain chemicals, and certain

other exposures posed to children. And assess the prevalence of and threat posed by the prescription of selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, antipsychotics, mood stabilizers, stimulants, and weight loss drugs unquote the idea that we're going to be trying to take away people's antipsychotics while also making handguns more available across the country.

Speaker 2

Yes, more children with handguns, less children on antipsychotics.

Speaker 4

Like, but like this is this is targ getting like depression medication, mood stabilizers, meds for ADHD, you know, like antipsychotics. And then also you know, lines about certain chemicals absolutely being like an anti vaccine dog whistle.

Speaker 5

Also also we have to mention to the diabetes part of this. Yeah, where that is uh an unbelievably alarming thing for for him to be say, Yeah, it's pretty bad because like the thing about diabetes is you don't have to feel like your body can't, like literally can't physically fucking process shit. You can't actually solve that with exercise.

Speaker 3

Like yeah, and like I'll just say, like I've worked in diabetes education in the past, right, and in various nonprofit capacities. Not that kind of doctor, but I have seen the people who have died because they have been subjected to this kind of bullshit. Like I know the people who have lost children and loved ones because of this. And it is heartbreaking to think that somebody, no, somebody trying to make money would like to someone about their health.

And the people who are most vulnerable to this are the people who are also already struggling to access healthcare and access medications, and it is disgusting to see the government pushing this.

Speaker 4

On Tuesday, r K Junior made his first official statement since being confirmed, promising that quote nothing is going to be off limits unquote in his quest to make America healthy again, telling Health and Human Services staffers quote, some of the possible factors we will investigate were formally taboo or insufficiently scrutinized unquote, And then, according to Politico, RFK Junior suggests that he would direct HHS to investigate antidepression, drugs,

ultra processed food, electromagnetic radiation, and the herbicide glysophate. So that seems to be some of their first targets.

Speaker 5

Four G, five G cell tower shit great.

Speaker 2

Great, yeah, yeah, no, Now I am excited for people to both not have food and also not have adderall. Uh. That's that's really going to make quite an interesting mob.

Speaker 4

Our economy is going to crash if they if they remove adderall, this whole country is going to cake.

Speaker 2

If we are going to see stockbrokers leaping out of windows at rates unheard.

Speaker 3

Of, it's that stuff.

Speaker 5

We are simply going to move to an economy that is entirely based on the consumption of cocaine and meth like one of these things is going to happen.

Speaker 2

That's true. Adderall is going to be worth more by weight than gold. People. Vans will be the new legal currency.

Speaker 5

I'm gonna start store them like pepper corns.

Speaker 2

I bought a house with two months of vivants.

Speaker 5

Yeah, Jesus.

Speaker 4

Lastly, before we go on, break borders are Tom Homan has been on a crusade against AOC and others for holding Know Your Rights trainings specifically informing constituents, including legal citizens who are being harassed by ICE that you do not need to open the door. If ICE knocks on your door, you can ask them to leave, You can stay silent. You don't need to share personal information. You have the right to speak with an attorney, and you do not need to sign anything or hand over any documents.

So there's been you know, like webinars and trainings informing people of their rights. And this is really upset borders our Tom Homan who last week went on Fox News to accuse AOC of impediment, which is not a real word. Yes, and he announced that he has directed or has asked the DOJ and the Deputy Attorney General to investigate AOC for interfering with ICE actions by simply educating people about their rights. I have a clip here I'm going to play in the podcast with Homan on Sean Hannity.

Speaker 1

When does it cross a line into aiding and embedding law breaking?

Speaker 2

It wouldn't have to have direct involvement by her in helping people to evade ICE.

Speaker 6

That's exactly the question I pull go to the deput Attorney General. I asked them to look into I says, I you know, I know I through my career, someone steps in front of it, in between you and the personal rest and your repeating yeah, that's a violation. But what point do you cross line on saying you're educating people versus your teaching howled bade ice wrest. So I've asked that question to the Department of Justice for clear guidance so I can share that with the officers advice.

So we're looking for that, uh, clear direction so we can start taking action. And people don't want to invade, who want to help educate these people to evade ice. So hopefully any day now we get that guidance sent out to the field.

Speaker 4

Let's turn this over to discussion. James, I'm sure, I'm sure you have some thoughts on this.

Speaker 3

Yeah, look, this is the kind of foundational to the Constitution rights access to an attorney, the right to an attorney, And it's again something that like even under Biden, that the DHS have been taking a swing at. Specifically, we've done an episode last year about transferring detained people in ice custom away from their attorneys. Right in this most cases it was people from California, specificlarly San Diego, County because San Diego County had a program that funded some

attorney access and moving them to Texas. So like you're either going to bleed that program dry flying attorneys to Texas or have them do it over a phone call. But a lot of these people who are detained because they come from dictatorial countries don't feel like phone calls are secure, and so they're they're not really going to feel comfortable talking to their attorney on a phone call. We've done a whole episode about.

Speaker 4

That, you can go back and listen to it, and like this is very basic Fourth Amendment stuff and that this this applies to you whether or not you were a citizen, and this applies.

Speaker 5

To you if you are in this country.

Speaker 3

Yeah, you have these rights.

Speaker 4

And it is within ices and the Tom Holman's interests to make people not realize that they actually do have rights regardless of their immigration status.

Speaker 3

Yeah. Absolutely, Like they're not gonna tell you, necessarily, right what rights you have. No, they're not going to tell you they don't have the right to enter your house.

Speaker 4

Police want to enter your home and if you open the door, they but you do not need to open the door. And like this is like very basic stuff of informing people, really getting on Tom Homan's nervous. He's been on news like five times the past week to specifically complain about AOZ. He really wants sort of get arrested for this thing that's not a crime.

Speaker 3

Yeah, I mean that's kind of what they're going forward throughout, right, But like I know, for instance, in California, lots of universities have these like know your Rights cards accessible that you can have them in your lectures and give them out your students so they can take them regardless of citizenship status, right, which is generally the way to approach

this right with a with an agnostic approach to citizenship. Correct, you don't certainly want to be holding a if you're undocumented come to this thing at this time and will give you a know your Right session like that. That is not a smart way to approach this. But yeah, like immigration agnostic know your rights trainings, they're kind of foundational to to like constitutional rights that they're pretty much front and center.

Speaker 4

Of things you're allowed. Do you know what else is front center advertisements? That's right, it's in their article twenty two.

Speaker 3

It's like they they can't put the soldiers in your bedroom unless that's once hit by.

Speaker 2

I mean, look depending on the soldier.

Speaker 5

All Right, we are back, Mia. It's a time for tariff talk. Yeah, time of tariff Talk.

Speaker 2

Tariff Talk. Dan Will inserts a little little musical jingle here for tariff Talk.

Speaker 3

Daniel.

Speaker 5

I'll not but an editor on this podcast for years, but.

Speaker 2

Sure, tariff Talk, Tariff Talk talking about terriff.

Speaker 5

Tariff talk with me a walk.

Speaker 2

There we go.

Speaker 3

I thought Garrison said turf talk in a Canadian way.

Speaker 2

It was like very different podcast, much more cursing.

Speaker 5

Why not Mia, Mia, tariff Talk. Okay, Okay, I got a through line, which is that Trump is announcing that he's going to maybe sign an executive order to put into effect more terriffs. One of those is pharmaceuticals, which would actually would actually like possibly impact shashy your healthcare. So there's my tie in. Okay, But those the main things is auto imports like computer chips and pharmaceuticals are supposed to get we think in April like a twenty

five percent terri if. It's again unclear whether these will go into effecting break but I think it's worth noting this because and this is something I haven't seen anyone put together for reasons that are absolutely baffling to me. But I actually think that a big part of the pharmaceutical like tariff threat here is specifically to threaten Denmark into selling Greenland because one of Denmark's largest companies is

nov and Nordius, who would get absolutely colossally fucked by this. Yeah, yeah, yeah, And so we sort of have to look at all of these in the context of, like what kinds of negotiations are going on. That chips one is pretty obviously like a China Taie one one, although the cars, the auto import one, I think is specific pretty specifically it's it's all auto imports. I think it's pretty specifically targeted at Mexico because there's a whole bunch of auto like

like full car imports from Mexico. But yeah, twenty five percent tariffs. Will see exactly what happens with this round of negotiations, but who knows they might go into effect. This might also be part of the push to the

US to seize Greenland. This is also less of a Trump thing, but I think it's worth noting the sort of seriousness that both the kind of the people around Trump and also like the media in Canada is taking like a potential US attempt to just like sees Canada like, oh yeah, like they might really do that.

Speaker 4

Oddly enough, this push from Trump might actually help catalyze the anti conservative movement in Canada, which has kind of been trending conservative the past ten years.

Speaker 3

Yeah.

Speaker 4

Yeah, and Trump's actions have really upset the country, even the conservative factions. Yeah, you're seeing support for the Liberals swell, which has been like in like rapid decline for the past five years. So it's actually causing a pretty big shake up in Canadian politics right now, which I'm sure I'll do an episode on in the future.

Speaker 2

There's even I don't know if it'll it's going things are going to change enough to have a big influence. They probably won't on the next German election, but AfD saw its first drop and support in a while after JD Vance endorsed them. Still doesn't have any juice we except send them to the UK.

Speaker 5

We could kill reform now send it to the UK.

Speaker 3

Yeah, God, how I would love to see that.

Speaker 4

I wish to get back on the war on Woke front. I like to talk about attempts to purge DEI gone wrong. Specifically in OSHA, who has now trashed a workplace of safety guidelines by banning and removing like eighteen workplace like training and safety publications for a popular info Now. Some of these documents have been removed for just containing the word like gender wow, like in one case, about how patients might need different treatments based.

Speaker 5

On their gender or age.

Speaker 4

This list of banned documents also include a document from twosand and nine that instructs employers on how to quote unquote protect their EMS responders from becoming additional victims while on the front line of medical response unquote. The alleged reason for removal is because the document contains a sentence about how EMT workers work under quote unquote diverse conditions and that EMT agencies have a quote diversity of state specific certification, training, and regulatory requirements.

Speaker 2

There was also a special education program dedicated to helping young adult special ed kids transition into the workforce that got cut, and the suspicion is because it was a child program that included the word transition.

Speaker 1

Like.

Speaker 2

We're not going to know for a while the precise reason, but all of this lines up pretty well well.

Speaker 4

I mean, I'm sure it would also be removing programs with the word disability.

Speaker 2

Frankly like yeah, oh yeah, yeah, I mean, and they're doing that elsewhere too.

Speaker 4

I just yeah, And this is affecting a huge number of agencies, right, We could do we probably will do whole episodes on this. I've been collecting a whole bunch of resources in a document called the War on Woke, which eventually I will turn into an episode. This is manifested in otherwise as well. There's now disclaimers on the target HIV and the CDC website, which now reads the

CDC's website. It's being modified to comply with President Trump's executive orders, and specifically, on pages related to sexual health, there is a big like a top banner reading quote. Per court order, HHS is required to restore this website. As of eleven fifty nine pm February fourteen, twenty twenty five, any information on this page promoting gender ideology is extremely inaccurate and disconnected from the immutable biological reality that there

are two sexes, male and female. The Trump administration rejects gender ideology and condemns the harms it causes to children by promoting their chemical and surgical mutilation and to women by depriving them of their dignity, safety, well being, and opportunities. This page does not reflect biological reality, and therefore the administration and this department rejects it out. So even though they've been ordered to have these web pages, it's still online.

They are basically defacing the web pages with these with these notes from the Trump team.

Speaker 5

Yeah. That also, by the way, and the extent to which this matters is basically zero because they don't give a shit with the court say, but like, that's also a violation of the court order. Pretty much. They did not put up the website as it was at the time were specified for. They have put new bullshit into it.

Speaker 4

Like, but speaking of violating court orders, the Trump administration told a judge in a Tuesday court filing that it will not comply with the TRORO directing USAIDED and the State Department to resume foreign aid funding, stating that quote USAYED intends to terminate instruments that the administrator determines are inconsistent with the national interests or usaide's mission. And it tries to argue that this is like in line with

usaide's you know, lawful ability to operate. So they are just like blatantly, blatantly defying a judge's order, as we've talked about how they seem to be wanting to and continuing to do for the past like four weeks. More on that in the weeks to come, as this situation you know, escalates through different appeals courts and you know, will eventually probably reach some kind of final showdown with

the Supreme Court. Now, longtime Social Security official Michelle King has quit the agency amid fights to prevent DOAGE from accessing sensitive information. The Washington Post quoted Martin O'Malley, the Social Security Commission under the Biden administration and a former Maryland governor, as saying, quote, at this rate, they will break it, and they will break it fast, and there will be an interruption of benefits.

Speaker 5

Unquote.

Speaker 4

Social Security is just one of the agencies that dog is either gutting or has already gutted, and it's leading to kind of a mass resignation not only of like you know, probationary employees and like deferred resignation like letter employees, right everyone who's receiving that fork in the road email, but also just like top ranking like officials who've been doing this their whole lives, who are quitting because now it's impossible for them to like do their job with

Musk's doge basically running all of these departments and determining who can be hired who should be fired. In late January, David Leibrick, the highest ranking civil servant at the Treasury Department, was put on leave and then quit his job after trying to stop dog from accessing data at the Bureau of Fiscal Service. The head of the FDA's Food Division, Jim Jones, resigned last Monday, citing dough as inhibiting his

ability to run the department. And at least four deadly plane crashes have happened this past month, actually five now considering well one this morning. And then there's also that whole upside down Delta flight from Minneapolis to Toronto. And this is all happening amidst the Trump admins mass firing of several hundred probationary employees at the FAA, an already

understaffed agency. And this past Monday, a team from SpaceX arrived at the Air Traffic Control headquarters in Virginia to begin the process of overhauling the control system.

Speaker 2

Great cool.

Speaker 3

Luckily SpaceX has had no notable incidents and so I'm sure that will be fine.

Speaker 2

No, they didn't just hide a racket going off.

Speaker 5

There's there's good news. There is there is good news on this front, which is that President Trump is very very mad that his new Boeing like plane is like his personal plane. For like, I think it's I think it's like another air Force one or something isn't.

Speaker 3

Coming fast enough.

Speaker 5

So's he's now encouraging them to like do a rush job on it and like let people in doing the right security clearances. So so this whole thing critical support to Boeing. Critical Boeing, you motherfuckers, you have one job, mister, produced an airplane at your normal quality and standards.

Speaker 4

Similar to that on February thirteenth, that an air Force plane carrying Secretary of State Mark Rubio was forced to turn around en route from Washington to Munich after the aircraft, a converted Boeing seven fifty seven, experienced a mechanical issue ninety minutes into the flight, so they were forced to turn around. So again, critical support to Boeing. I only wish them the best in securing more and more government contracts.

Speaker 2

Absolutely, you know, I think we uh uh I actually we would probably call it as an episode before I make any more jokes about air travel.

Speaker 4

Which is increasingly scary. I flew so much last year, and I am less willing to now.

Speaker 2

I do not want to. Now that said, it is worth noting. I think there's two things that are worth noting. One is most of what people are pointing out as like scary crashes are crashes that the same number happened to this point last year. When it comes to like small aircraft, yeah, those are much more dangerous than cars like tiny personal aircraft, which is why I always enjoy at cees when they try to sell cars less regulated flying cars.

Speaker 3

Oh yeah.

Speaker 2

But I also think from a political standpoint, no, we should actually absolutely every single plane crash, even if it's a tiny plane crashing and not tied to the greater shit with the FAA, all of them should go on Trump's head. It's not about what's true, it's about what you can use to make political hay. And this is something that you can hurt Republicans with. Every time someone eyes in a plane crash, lay it at their feet, right, Like, what do you get from being honest.

Speaker 4

And it has been one of the more deadly monks in aviation. H Yeah, specifically for like American soil.

Speaker 2

They're definitely going to get people killed. But like the way that you do that is not wait until okay, this is finally the one that it's fair to attack.

Speaker 5

Yeah, yeah, yeah, you make it.

Speaker 2

You make every time this gets in the news, you make it on their head.

Speaker 3

You know, it's certainly not helping, right that, Like the FAA was already understuffed, Like as as you said, people were already dying in plane crashes. Taking stuff away from the FAA is not helping, Like we can't isolate that from every crash that happens.

Speaker 4

And like it's it's not just that, it's also like the continued they continued hiring freeze. Largely air traffic control operators have not been affected by the firings. Other support staff have, which are still just as crucial. But it's also preventing them from hiring more air traffic controllers, which they need to because it's so understaff, which actually does lead to an increase of these like small plane collisions. And this is this is like a similar pattern across

all departments. Though, the USDA announced on Tuesday that over the weekend they accidentally fired several agency employees who are working on the bird flu response as a result of the Trump Doge mass firings and now and now USDA is trying to rehire them.

Speaker 5

Have we explained the provisional employee firing thing that they're doing for all.

Speaker 3

Of these on here yet you should explain what a probational employee is.

Speaker 4

Well, yeah, it's employees that I've been hired for less than a year and have different protections than other career employees.

Speaker 2

Yeah.

Speaker 4

And part of Doge's campaign to do like massive massive layoffs across all government sectors is by targeting first of all probationary employees because they're easiest to fire, and then move on to career employees. And like this this is just like the first batch of mass layoffs because they're the easiest to do. They don't have like union negotiations, they can't appeal the firing. So this is like the first step in a larger series of events that will

lead to, you know, a severely reduced government workforce. And like this situation with the USDA is a very similar situation with the Nuclear Strategy employees who the government is struggling to rehire because they lost contact information with them after firing them.

Speaker 5

They fired the Duke Police.

Speaker 2

They fired the guys whose job is to transport and make sure no one steals nuclear weapons. I cannot have the one kind of cop we can all agree we need as long as we keep having those things.

Speaker 5

This is one of these things where it's like like I've been saying, not even really as a joke, that millions of people are going to die from this, but like yeah, like if these people are not stopped, oh, you will have a broken arrow. We are like two months into this. This is the second time they have tried to fire the nuke Police, and they actually succeeded this time. Right, Like millions of people are going to die,

and they lost their phone number. They can't even call them back, Like they don't don't the numbers of the security, Like these people must be stopped from doing this or or we are going to see a cataclysm that is going to make the fucking pandemic look like a fucking joke. Like we're all going to look fondly back on like the year we spent in lockdown and a million who died as like the fucking like smoking remains of seven American cities.

Speaker 2

I have an episode on this that I'll put out at some point. But you're getting to a thing that I've been worried about for a while, Mia, which is, we are every day getting closer and closer to a nuclear January sixth. And what I mean by that is an incident in which a nuclear weapon gets it either gets utilized or gets out of the control of its proper handlers in a way that is dumb. In the

same way January sixth to us. So I'm not talking about you have like an actual military conflict between Russia and the United States. I'm talking about something really fucking stupid, Like I'm talking about something incomprehensibly silly. And yeah, millions of people will at least potentially die.

Speaker 4

Well, what another uplifted episode of it could happen here?

Speaker 5

Happen here? Stop them now, they're week right now, before they do this, they could only get stronger.

Speaker 3

Yeah, well, until someone else gets a nuke, then general bets are off.

Speaker 2

Like I said, if you are someone who has been fired from the federal government, we're transporting a nuke. I have a large backyard and cool Zone would would love to become a nuclear power.

Speaker 4

Also unrelated, we have a tip email James want to talk about.

Speaker 3

For legal reasons, this is a joke. We do not want any nukes. It is cool Zone Tips at proton dot me. You can contact us there. It is proton man is encrypted. That only means that the mail is encrypted if you send from a Protony email address to a Protony email address. None of that means that you had necessarily one hundred percent secure, but it's the best option that we have for right now. If you'd like to reach out to us, please feel free to do so. Cool Zone Tips at proton dot me.

Speaker 5

We reported the news.

Speaker 3

We reported the news.

Speaker 1

It could Happen Here is a production of cool Zone Media. For more podcasts from cool Zone Media, visit our website Coolzonmedia dot com, or check us out on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. You can now find sources for It Could Happen here listed directly in episode descriptions. Thanks for listening.

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